UP cops dub Jaunpur candidate's killing as 'suicide'

April 14, 2009 20:27 IST

The Uttar Pradesh police appeared to be bent upon dubbing Monday's killing of Indian Justice Party's dalit nominee Bahadur Sonkar from Jaunpur as "suicide."

Giving out finer details of the post mortem report, Brij Lal, UP's additional director general of police (law and order) told mediapersons in Lucknow on Tuesday evening, "The post mortem report talks only about a few lacerated wounds on the forehead and neck while the manner in which saliva and other fluids were found to have oozed from his mouth also indicates suicide."

He also sought to point out, "The height at which the body was hanging from the tree with just a gamcha (scarf) shows that it was not a simple task that could have been carried out by just anyone." He was however at his wit's end when a scribe sought to know that under the circumstances, how the person could have managed to hang himself entirely on his own.

When another scribe drew his attention to Bahujan Samaj Party minister Babu Singh Kushwaha's earlier statement in which he had pointedly blamed the "murder" on Samajwadi Party, the ADG (law and order) pleaded, "Well I am not aware of that, all I can tell you is what I find in the post-mortem report ; further details would be given only after the investigations were completed."

He said, "ADG (Central Investigation Department) Padman Singh was already in Jaunpur to personally supervise the investigations which were being carried out on top priority."

Clearly in no mood to concede the demand of the victim's family for a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into the murder, the Mayawati government had also detailed top officials of the state to carry out a speedy CID inquiry that could ratify the "findings" of the local police, whose obvious mission was to sheild the alleged culprit Dhananjay Singh, the BSP nominee for the Jaunpur seat.

"Since the time we discovered Bahadur Sonkar's body hanging from a tree, we have been convinced that he was murdered and then hung from the tree to give it the colour of suicide. That is why we have been demanding that the case be handed over to CBI", the victims brother Barhu Ram Sonkar told rediff.com

Reiterating how Sonkar was repeatedly intimidated by local Deputy Superintendent of Police Ditendra Chaudhary, who was pressuring him to withdraw his candidature in favour of Dhananjay, he went on to add, "Even the written complaints made by my brother to both the district superintendent of police as well as the district magistrate remained unheeded."

Refuting the official claim that the names of Dhananjay Singh and his henchmen were not given in the initial First Investigation Report and were sought to be only added later by the victim's family, Barhu Ram Sonkar said, "What could we do if they refused to include his name at the very outset?"

He emphasised, "As far as we are concerned we have every reason to believe that the murder was the handiwork of Dhananjay Singh, who is a dreaded mafia don in this region because of the number of heinous criminal cases pending against him."

It may be mentioned that even before the post-mortem was carried out, the family members were arousing suspicion that the report would be "doctored".